Bad Moon
by PallaPlease
Summary: [During TM - Imhotep has risen, group is headed back to Cairo.]  "She lies within the water." A series of small mishaps leads to a peculiar oasis - but Evelyn's having bad dreams and Rick can't sleep. Rick/Evie. Part one up.


Notes: Really, this is the first in a short Rick/Evie novella and is undoubtedly the most uneventful part (of the eight, if all goes as planned) of the lot, but it *does* have volatile Rick and Evie musing over her attraction to him thus far in the movie (see SET below). Please, please, *please* (I'm pathetic, I know) review. I'll love you. ^.-  
  
Set: The trip back from Hamunaptra to Cairo (Imhotep has risen, Burns is still alive but missing eyes/tongue, etc.). I've decided the trip would probably be about a week (on horse/camel), based on one of the deleted scenes on the DVD (the second one of the three, specifically).  
  
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Bad Moon: Heat  
  
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They broke camp immediately, yanking half-tents out of the sand with little difficulty and folding them in hurried, awkward piles to be cast over the steepled humps of camels or the glistening backs of horses, only to be told to take what little they needed. Pride, even in the face of danger, created momentary dissension as the fully American group bristled, hostile at the man who had volunteered himself to leadership. Himself an impulsive and brash man, Henderson was quickly taken off his guard by the calm manner in which the broad-shouldered man cocked a revolver and pointed it to the blonde man's head. It was threat enough, seeing the unflinching surety in his granite eyes, without him saying in his deep, pleasant baritone:  
  
"Put the bags down and get on the damn horse."  
  
He did not seem aware of it himself, but the tall man with red-streaked hair - O'Connell - had assumed leadership in the few minutes wasted trying to salvage camp in Hamunaptra. Tension lined his shoulders and he was fully capable of glaring murder until finally Daniels, sullen and quietly jittery, dropped the heavy woolen blanket he had gathered into his arms. He glowered at the rough man as he hoisted the woman onto a large, blandly peaceful camel resting on its laurels - privately, he wondered if Henderson still wanted to continue their bet on whether or not she was O'Connell's lover - and watched carefully as the smaller man, her brother, helped a poorly bandaged Burns on the camel before her. He felt a shudder tear through his shoulders, bile rising in fear of what he was growing uneasily aware of being real, and he hastened to throw his leg over a nervously pacing horse.  
  
By sunrise they had gone, leaving half of a camp scattered in ghostly positions and at least four camels grazing sedately on ragged tufts of bitter desert grass.  
  
-  
  
Evelyn found the rhythmic lope of the camel, an easy sway from side to side that was hypnotic under starlight, was far less comfortable with two people on the same tan animal plodding steadily along. She grimaced, feeling sweat trickle down the slope of her back, sticky as it traced down her spine and between her shoulder blades as she adjusted her grip on Burns' waist; with his hunched figure in the fore, bandaged face bowed forward in an attempt to avoid the light sting of sand, she could not move elegantly with the flowing steps and so lurched awkwardly, trying to subtly help the blinded man and keep her own balance. She glanced enviously at her brother, longing, momentarily, for the luxury of riding alone on camel or horse.  
  
She bit her tongue, though, feeling a subdued shudder from hollow pain echo through Burns' body, and regretted what she decided was a selfish thought. He was hurt physically and she could easily suppose he felt the same resounding terror she did: remembrance of the powerful, frightening monster that was released in the underground catacombs of Hamunaptra. Each time she closed her eyes she could see the flapping gauze and decomposing tendons exposed to vain grey light, obscured by dust and heightened by the musty, stagnant air that had not seen life in three thousand years. If the fear was still rooted thick in her hours after her temporary salvation, she could only wonder how deep it ran in this man whose last image, final sight to be seen and drawn upon repeatedly, was surely that of the horrible creature.  
  
Even under the immense desert sun, black Bedouin cloths pressed to her skin by the blistering heat, she could not contain her shiver, feeling - just for a second - the horror she had been swamped with, and then pity for Burns. Of all the men in the opposing party, with loud-mouthed Henderson and the highly neurotic Daniels, and that horrid Egyptologist, Burns with his pleasant sense of humor and friendly nature was the only one she had liked or come close to considering as a possible friend. Sighing just a bit, she tilted her head up and squinting her eyes at the brilliant glare of the sun, memorized the particular shade of blue the heavens were that morn.  
  
As she lowered her head again, thoughtful about a sense she had long taken for granted and wrinkling her nose at the sharp brush of sand over it, her gaze fell like clockwork to O'Connell. She thought her eyes, or mind, or whatever, were being terribly unfair to her, somehow conspiring to pick him out along the edges of her vision before she was conscious about it, and by then she was staring at him. Oh, bother, she thought angrily. That was the last thing she needed, to stare at him when anyone - especially O'Connell himself, not that she would ever admit that - had only to turn and spot her gaping like some sheltered schoolgirl. Thankfully her jaw had yet to drop in a gawk of any sort and she clenched her teeth, determined to avoid such happening and shifting her eyes slightly so she was arguably staring at a spot five inches from his broad left shoulder.  
  
She found it admittedly unsettling how she was - completely without sane reason, she comforted herself - attracted to him in spite of his rudeness when first they met, and on occasion thereafter. And yes, she had been attracted to men before and been kissed at least twice, not counting the horrid prison kiss even if it did inexplicably occupy her thoughts at times, but each of those men had been sterling peers of the realm; they were intelligent, highly well-read, and very polite Englishmen who most certainly had not forcibly kissed her, insulted her - meaning to or not, hauled her about, thrown her off boats, or plied her with whiskey. O'Connell was a sharp man, but an American who seemed like most of his brethren to have a headstrong quality, though his was tempered quite a bit, and he had done all of those things to her in a matter of ten or so days.  
  
Still, life was terribly exciting with him around, which was apparently a mixed blessing in that she *had* been thrown off a boat, after the thing went up in glorious flames. Evelyn felt a sting of guilt, knowing that in spite of the whole walking dead bit and Mr. Burns' gruesome disfigurement, she had truly felt more alive in the events of the past two weeks than she had in the years after her parents' deaths. God knew she loved her job dearly, was never happier than when she was surrounded by books and ancient thoughts bound in paper, those old puzzles to be mulled over, but there was an addictive excitement to discover in the ruinous desert.   
  
A faint niggling thought - now that O'Connell had saved her life, having repaid her for saving his, what would he stay around for after returning to Cairo? - made itself known, uneasy and running deeps with implications as to why the idea of his leaving her life as quickly as he had entered it was so unwanted.  
  
The camel lurched without portent, its wide, flat foot sliding briefly in the sand as it stumbled in a rare moment of clumsiness, and she reacted immediately, tightening her grip on Burns' waist to keep him from tumbling off of the heavy blanket used as a makeshift saddle. She prayed for strength and nearly sagged with private thanks when the camel reclaimed its balance and Burns struggled, succeeding, to right himself; they did not need anything slowing them down, not with that monster undoubtedly somewhere behind them. She heard the dark-haired man slur painful thanks, his mouth suddenly clumsy without a tongue to make it grateful, and murmured a general kindness, lifting a hand to touch his shoulder softly, comfortingly. Once, she had done the same for Jonathan, when they were very small and he had sprained both his ankles; it had soothed him, just a brief touch, and she hoped it would do the same for Burns.  
  
Distantly, she heard O'Connell talking lowly, his deep voice conversing sharply with Daniels, who looked as though he might leap clear out of his skin if prodded just the right way. A pain seemed to come within her at the sight, the indefinably foreboding sense of something to come and she felt certain, horribly so, that he was going to leave, some *thing* would happen or he would decide on his own to leave them. If he does that, she thought grimly, I swear to God I'll hunt him down and make him help me take that monster back to wherever he came from.  
  
And then she realized she was afraid he would leaver her, would not care enough to stay even for humanity. It was absurd, she knew, for her to expect a man like O'Connell - dashing and handsome, if incorrigible and rough - to care about her, much less stick around in a place they all knew to be dangerous when he had already let it be more or less known he had no interest in dying. He had been kind to her, though, in a nervous fashion as though he was not used to showing affection of any sort, even the first steps of friendship. Not that she wanted or needed or enjoyed his friendship, or wanted him to return this silly attraction she felt for him. Evelyn scowled at her train of thought and looked away from the man with auburn hair, pushing away the annoyingly anxious wandering in her mind. Damn that O'Connell, sticking thoughts of himself firmly in her head.  
  
Burns shifted before her, one of his arms moving awkwardly as like a bird's broken wing to his face, the reddening skin around the coarse bandages itching unbearably that he would scratch even with the pain as it was now. She checked her grip on his waist, having no desire to be pulled down with him should he fall, and glanced about, trying to see if any one of their small group would be willing to help him. No one seemed to notice, caught as they were in their own withdrawn, unsettled worlds, and she loosened one arm to snag the leather strap holding her canteen to the makeshift saddle. Pulling it up, she struggled one-handed to uncap it; when the small metal mouth was finally exposed - she stared with a sinking sensation as the tin cap plunged, glittering silver, to the sand, a hopeless watching as it vanished behind them, sands already sweeping over it - she pinned it between her legs and reached for the filmy cloth over her black skirt.  
  
She tore a strap off, using her elbow to keep the cloth still, and dipped the strip into her canteen, soaking it resolutely and carefully tugging it back out, glistening droplets of water dripping from its ragged edges. Bunching this makeshift washcloth gently, careful not to squeeze the precious water out, Evelyn leaned forward, her hand moving to press the wetness to Burns' cheek in offering. "Mister Burns," she spoke quietly, "if you dab your mouth and eyes with this, I think it might help." She stayed as carefully still as she could on the shifting animal's back, and waited patiently.  
  
Soon enough his hand, shaking with stress and shock, mixed with exhaustion, fingered up to pass quivering over her fingertips, grasping the cloth. "Thang," he struggled to get out, his speech garbled by his newly attained impediment, and his shoulders sagged with wounds both external and internal. She smiled encouragingly though he did not face her and could not see her even had he been doing so, and kept her hand in place, withdrawing it only when he had grasped it himself. "Thang 'oo," he choked out, his voice breaking a bit at the end. An unvoiced sob rattled his spine, his body curling forward as he used the scrap of wet cloth to wipe cool moisture over the tender, swollen flesh around his eye sockets, exposed to the harsh, rising morning sun where the bandages did not cover.  
  
Evelyn had spent long enough with her brother to know better than to mention what men seemed to find weak actions; she would keep the secret of his pain.  
  
"Here," she said gently, taking his other hand and, balanced precariously as both of them were, carefully handing him her water canteen. "I don't want you to argue with me, as you must drink this." She ignored his feeble protests, murmuring words of comfort in response, and certain she would be fine, felt her eyes drifting once more to the strong shape of O'Connell turned to speak, now, with Jonathan, his firm, boyish jaw set in a taut line. A hollow feeling settled within, pervasive and lonely, as she watched him, and she blinked; taking an even breath as desert winds scoured her thick black curls, she found herself somehow lonely and wondering if her damned American felt the same peculiar tightness when he saw her: close enough to be reached if one took a moment to stride or run, but in the same breath too far to ever touch with needy fingertips.  
  
His head turned, slightly, and she sensed rather than saw his piercing eyes flicker toward her, thinking she might find her in answer in that gaze she had known but ten days. She averted her eyes quickly, afraid of letting him know something she did not understand herself.  
  
-  
  
Rick found he couldn't decide whether to grab her and claim the kiss she had offered when admittedly drunk or continue to glare evilly at anyone who dared initiate a conversation with him - if he was going to talk with anyone, he'd be the one to start. He decided to stick with the latter of the two, having already developed a sort of mental list of things she would not appreciate, and so had glared foully for long moments, his lips thinned and eyes narrowed, at the horizon; now, though, he watched Evelyn for a long, hard minute, ignoring the pointedly coughing Jonathan at his side as he stared at the man's sister. He had felt her watching him, pretty features oddly blank, and had for reasons he was battling with turned to meet her gaze with his, and she looked away, moved her face to avoid her eyes merging with his sharpened ones.  
  
Jonathan muttered something, shaking his head in a woeful fashion as he guided his horse to the side, finding Daniels - who was not tremendously social on the best of days which this was assuredly not - a better conversationalist than his and Evelyn's erstwhile guide.  
  
The taller man watched him leave without truly seeing, blankly intent on unconsciously picking out the correct path back to the Nile and from there navigate to Cairo, with the steady pressure of one who did not know if he was predator or prey and so sought to find a way around that would decide. There was no way in hell Rick was going to be that monster's prey, and if he could help it, he would make sure to find a way to get Evelyn - and her brother - out of its way and somewhere safe, where he could trust she would not be hurt. Being a relatively sane man who had been in enough battles where he was more than outmanned but also overpowered, there was also a very slim chance he would let himself slip from ambiguity into the slot of predator; unholy evil or not, he was definitely not going after something a rifle shot in the heart could not kill.  
  
So: he was taking them back to Cairo, Evelyn, Jonathan, and his fellow Americans of poorly chosen fate, where he was going to do everything in his power to get her things packed and on a boat or zeppelin or lame horse's back, anything he could find. If he had to marry her to get her out of Egypt, live with her in sin, whatever it took, fine, so long as he knew that creature would have no chance of touching her, much less foul the air she breathed.  
  
His jaw tightened, the same surge of protectiveness rising that had led him to fire at the bastard from some primitive territorial response to a threat presented in body language and that demonic roar to all those present - and somehow Rick felt Evelyn was the one in the most danger. He knew he was not the sort of man with a traditional mindset, not like that Egyptologist he'd heard muttering dark epitaphs about Evelyn's gender and proper place as a woman, and she could take care of herself for the most part, even if he did need to help her practices with a rifle; nonetheless, his gut feelings had yet to prove him wrong and if eh felt innately, with hardly any true proof or reason, that she was in danger, he'd be damned before he left her anywhere near the threat.  
  
Rick spared a quick look at the position of the sun in the east, fast approaching noon, and swiftly calculating their position in part with it and a mental map of Egypt, swore loudly in French. God knew he'd been in the Legion long enough to pick several handy obscene phrases up, and both strung out from the adrenaline coursing yet through his blood and frustrated at the minute things that had slowed them down, fraction by fraction, he nearly ran through his inventory. It was a rare infuriated explosion from him - he was sardonic, yes, but usually even-keeled - and even Henderson, who had spent the last half hour complaining under his breath in part because of his own emotional exhaustion, fell silent. Grabbing the reins of his horse's loose, old harness in his hands, he tugged sharply on the lengths, leading the horse to move marginally to the left.  
  
"Come on," he shouted over his shoulder, nudging his heel into the horse's ribs to urge it forward along the proper way, "we've been going the wrong way." His voice ended the sentence with a note of disgust, angry at his own error, and he finished, "Cairo's this way." He clapped the reins slightly, jerking only once when the horse lurched forward, ignoring the thin, sticky streak of sweat tracing a shivering path down the outside of his throat.  
  
Henderson balked his own horse, slender haw setting into an incredulous gape coupled with his angered face. "God damn it, O'Connell!" he snarled, fingers flexing, as Daniels led the horse toward him, his face mirroring the blonde's fury. "What the hell do you mean by telling us we've been going the wrong way? You've been heading *this* way for the past damn hour!" He flung his arm out in a broad, frustrated gesturing, narrowly missing the shorter Daniels, who jerked back in startled reflex, his horse whinnying and pacing a step, hoof digging in the sand.  
  
"Yeah, well, if we keep going this way," Rick turned a bit on the pale horse he was riding, staring sourly back at the man, "we'll end up missing Cairo by eight miles, and unless you want to stay here and die, you'll go this way." To demonstrate the direction meant, he forced the horse to take several quick, narrow steps forward.  
  
"Oh, for Chrissakes!" Apparently it was Daniels' turn to enlighten the man leading them, his voice cracking once with the strain and overwhelmed nerves, and his eyes flickered nervously as though checking for an unseen threat. "How do we know for sure we're not going the right way?" he continued, Henderson nodding; Evelyn took a short moment to glare, lips pursed and the snub of her nose wrinkled slightly, at both men while quietly urging Burns to sip the contents of a water canteen he held in a trembling hand. "For all we know, if we stop goin' this way we'll end up lost," Daniels added, a muscle in his cheek leaping nervously.  
  
"Fine," snapped Rick, his voice carefully restrained, keeping anger in check to wield a curt tone, "if you wanna keep going that way, go ahead. You can rot in the sand, die, whatever, but you won't get to Cairo that way," he ended in a sweetened mock-friendly tone, his smile a thin, humorless one. "But I'm not itching to face that bastard again, so we're," he cocked his head toward Evelyn and Burns; Jonathan had already nudged his horse a few steps in Rick's direction, "going to Cairo. Stay here, let that guy rip you up like your friend, and die, but don't say I didn't tell you."  
  
Still facing the two men glowering, but very unsettled at the thought of the resurrected corpse, he spoke loudly to the other two, "Evelyn, Jonathan, we're going now." And then, carefully, enunciating in a sarcastically pleasant tone, "This way." His meaning was not lost on the pair of men and they shifted, neither one happy with either choice.  
  
Evelyn hurried the camel she shared with Burns, murmuring "siet, siet, siet" to urge it forward, and kept her grip firm on the man, the jostling animal tossing her thick hair into her face; regardless of his own anxious, ill-tempered mood, Rick felt a peculiar lump in his throat, watching her sweep the black curls away from her sharp features and speak encouragingly to the pained Burns in a low voice.   
  
God, he thought, I know just how to pick the right moments to act like an idiot, don't I? His jaw clenched again and he waited, horse snorting in a nervous manner, for her to draw even with him.  
  
"You mustn't scratch at your eyes, Mister Burns," she was saying soothingly, a ghostly flit of worry crossing her face. "Mister O'Connell," she leaned over, resting a hand on his broad shoulder for balance as she tipped precariously on the camel, retaining a careful grip on the back of Burns' shirt, "I don't think we should travel nonstop, as it were; I'm afraid Mister Burns might not be up for traveling without a few breaks along the way." She glanced back at the bent man seated before her, the canteen shivering in his grip, and Rick moved slightly, to glance curiously around her at Burns, taking pains to keep his horse from shying forward as he shifted. "Please, O'Connell," she raised her eyebrows, giving him a look that was more insistent than pleading.  
  
Utterly, wonderfully Evelyn, that look was, trying to be intimidating but merely appearing a mixture of innocence and exasperation, and a large bit of the angry adrenaline in him passed out slowly.  
  
"I think we can have a few stops," he finally nodded, and smiled briefly; she smiled back by reflex and he motioned her forward, clapping his hand at the camel's haunch.  
  
"What, no smile for me?" Jonathan asked mildly and Rick raised his eyebrow, then slapped the flat of his palm, hard, on the buttocks of the horse the Englishman was riding. "Oh bleeding hell!" he cried, startled, as the animal lurched once, before breaking into a short, frenetic sprint, passing his sister and shouting, horrified, while the horse continued, sand skittering about. Evelyn laughed, a surprised and amused sound, as she held Burns cautiously and clucking her tongue, teased the camel into a quick, loping stride after her brother's frantic form.  
  
Rick grinned, feeling more at ease in the moment than he had since Evelyn had read the incantation from the Book of the Dead, and slapping the rains, coddled the horse in a following, smooth jog in pursuit of the other two, taking a quick second to bellow "Coming?" to Henderson and Daniels.   
  
The winds picked up, slashing small, thin ropes of sand into his body, stinging sensations lancing only a moment through the faded white cloth of his shirt along his chest and arms before the wind trickled into nonexistence, swelling anew soon. He heard the pair moving, grudgingly, to follow, but didn't bother to turn, closing his grey-blue eyes and tilting hid browned face back to take in the rare cool breeze as it spun through his dark hair, red and blonde tendrils woven in with the dark chocolate. Distantly, faintly, he could hear Evelyn laughing and though he did not understand why, he smiled shortly, bittersweet and tinged with sunlight.  
  
-  
  
Hours passed: noon came with the piercing, draining heights of the Egyptian day's strongest heat, then slipped away as sands in an hourglass. The later hours of the day soon approached as the group stayed in silence, drinking from canteens when the need to replenish lost fluids arose, and in the west the sun began to drift closer to the horizon. No break had shown itself to exist in the monotony of the dunes, the wind, and the yellowed blood of the sand, and it had proven to serve as an opium, a blandness that dulled the senses and rendered those in the miniscule caravan voiceless. Henderson had drifted, only a single time, into a state of upright slumber, dozing until his head jerked forward suddenly and painfully, a disc in his neck popping fractionally back into place; he winced and swore, rubbing with a grimace at the back of his neck as, blinking wearily, he lifted his head, scratching the heel of his palm along his sprouting beard.  
  
"Jesus H. Christ!" he swore loudly, his oath effectively snapping the other out of their various reflective depths. "What the hell's wrong with the gal!" O'Connell's head shot up immediately, several strands of his hair standing up almost comically, and he yanked his horse with a sharp twist of the reins, knotted leather wrapping about his wrists as he led the horse toward the camel and its two passengers.  
  
"Wha wong?" asked Burns wearily, thickly, the words slurring together in his mouth and emerging distorted. He had the weak, disoriented sound of one waking from a depthless sleep, and was lifting his head tiredly from where it had been resting on the scratchy neck of the camel. His jugular bobbed, swallowing, and he shuddered visibly at the pain it caused in his marred mouth and dry throat.   
  
The movement jarred Evelyn's limp form, her cheek sliding down his back as O'Connell swung off his horse with a determined purpose, kicking up sand as he jogged across the small distance, arms kept close and even. Were it not for the limp and uncomfortably still way she was reclining, her body bent awkwardly in such a direction as to easily let her fall from the back, Henderson might have though her to have been sleeping as well.  
  
By the time O'Connell was beside her, Evelyn's body was sliding from the camel; he caught her shoulder with one large hand and wound his other arm around her waist, effectively directing her limp figure to fall or slide directly into his arms. "Jesus, Evelyn," he muttered, propping his booted heel back to keep from staggering, and shifted her in a firmer grip, her unhealthily reddened cheek pressing into his shoulder. "She looks," he glanced up at the bewildered Burns, spotting the flat, emptied canteen pinned under his arm, "like heat stroke." Holding her carefully, and rather gently, Rick took a few steps back and turned, noticing only temporarily the movement of her face, a fairy light brush, over the swell of his shoulder, to force his way through the hindering sands.  
  
"Jonathan, blankets, ground, now," he ordered, shuffling his feet over a large patch of the desert ground to check for rocks, scorpions, or anything else unpleasant. Carefully moving Evelyn so her head rested closer to his neck than his shoulder, he hesitated, for a pounding heartbeat, and then lifted his left hand, making sure to avoid dropping his arm from supporting her shoulders, to brush away curls that had fallen across her cheeks.   
  
He cleared his throat, feeling awkward, and craned his head around, eyebrow cocking slightly and eyes narrowing meaningfully at Jonathan, who was struggling to lift the four heavy blankets from the horse he had just dismounted. "Come *on*, Jonathan, I'm not putting her in the dirt," then widely, to everyone, "we're making camp for the evening." Very delicately, he absently swept his hand down her shoulder, large thumb stroking the silky black cloth whispering against her skin, waiting as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon.  
  
-  
  
Evelyn - her skin touched with cold and feeling as if ice nibbled at the smooth tips of her fingers - opened her eyes, slowly, and took a testing, shy step forward. Ripples of water, pooling and elegant in their symmetrical grace, spread out from around her foot, clinging and soaking through the soft cloth of her Bedouin gown as she stared, bewildered, at the endless pool of cool, diamond water reflecting from one horizon to the other. Below the smooth surface, she could see the rivulets of shifting sand though the shallow sea struck halfway up her calves, motionless and glittering with the starlight shining above.  
  
"This," she said lowly, scooping up the folds of her dress and slogging forward aimlessly, "can *not* be where we stopped." As she said this, she paused, eyes rounding at the realization she had no memory of stopping, only of a growing sense of nausea and dizziness before a swooning blackness had engulfed her. "Oh, God," spoke Evelyn faintly, "what - where am I?" She turned at the waist, glimpsing back at the still water behind her as she swallowed, feeling oddly weak, thirsty; an irrational fear caught her, her old faith in things peculiar and fantastic reminding her of the monster they were fleeing, and wondering what she might see if she looked back to the front, she moved slowly to look before her.  
  
"Oh, God!" she shrieked, clamping a hand to her heart and, breathing hard, stepping back defensively. "O'Connell!" she added, tone shifting into fury at the tall American for startling her.  
  
He looked at her oddly, blank and not understanding her anger, before he cupped her chin with one of his calloused hands, sufficiently startling her to the point of gaping slightly up at him.  
  
"O'Connell, I should hope you are *not* about to do what it would seem you are," she finally said crossly, more than a little unnerved by the intent glint in his brown eyes - her heart pounded to a horrible, motionless stop before beating with adrenaline-powered knowledge, of the sort that did nothing to ease confusion or the alarm she felt. "You," she stared up at the familiar but foreign man, his alien brown eyes glistening, "you aren't O'Connell at all, are you?"  
  
In place of answering, the man who resembled O'Connell in nearly every way but the eyes that should have been like blue granite, he slid a hand in the thick coils of her hair, his palm strong and warm where it curved with her scalp; his warmth, his scent, even the large freckle at the right corner of his mouth, hidden by the shadowy whiskers on his jaw and upper lip, all were so close to O'Connell's, enough to spark the damned quiver in her knees the true O'Connell did. He bent, calm and features blank, empty of emotion, to touch his lips near her ear, whispering:  
  
"She lies within the water."  
  
As he pulled away, slowly, the imposter's lips withdrawing from the curved shell of her ear, she stiffened, feeling the alien prickling of something passing along the back of her calves, and--  
  
-  
  
--Evelyn awoke.  
  
--  
  
--  
  
End! (of the first part)  
  
--  
  
Feedback: It isn't perfect, it's an exposition! More coming soon - if you review. I jest. ;] Or do I...?  
  
Disclaimer: *singing* God save Som-mers! *winks* Universal owns, Stephen Sommers creates, and I pine after Jonathan - horribly so. 


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